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He was up at 6:55. He seems so tired. He stood at the top of the stairs until I carried him down. Took a few minutes before he said anything. He watched a Llama Llama and we got ready to go. We were walking t 7:45 and when we got to his classroom at 8:05 they were already having a meeting. The bell then rang, so I’m not crazy in thinking they have been starting early. They were discussing the schedule, and trying to figure out if it is called ‘Drama’ or ‘Creative Movement’ or something else. So I said goodbye to August and was able to leave.

Earlier, when I said he had dance class after school, he said he wanted a check-in. So I told him I would be out on the bench before 3 and if he felt he needed to see me before dance class he could come out. He did come out, about 3. He told me that dance class was too long, and that it would be better if it was just the welcoming dance and two dances. I pointed out that it was starting late today, so it would feel shorter. He went upstairs on his own to dance class.

I went in at one point and told Marion he would be gone tomorrow as I’ll be taking him to Dr. Aviv.

When class was over I asked Amelia how it went and she said fine, although she wasn’t sure how much he was enjoying it. We asked him, and he said he had fun. I told her what he said about it being too long, and she said that he could always leave at 30 or 45 minutes or whatever. We will keep that in mind for future classes.

We sat on the bench and he ate. He had done some painting, as there was yellow paint on his shirt and shorts. He told me he had painted a piece of paper yellow and other colors, but nothing more. Carly came a couple minutes later. She asked us if we’d seen the rain and he said he’d gone out and tested the rain, and that he was the only one that had done so. Hard to tell if it was real.

He hadn’t eaten any of his snack today, and only the bar out of his lunch. He told me he would only eat some snack if there was a bar in there. I had told him that we were going to go with Carly in the car so she could take us home and go to the store. But now he had a meltdown, saying he wasn’t done eating and we hadn’t played the preschool game yet. Really uncharacteristic of him, with him running away over to the playground. He yelled “Just eat, preschool game, then car. Simple!” I told Carly she could leave, and it took a few more minutes for him to calm down. Really think part of the problem was that he was starving as he had barely eaten anything.

He ate more, then we went up to the library to use the bathroom. We then sat on our bench again and played more preschool game. We got walking after 5. He was fine with the idea that we could call Carly once we were halfway. But then we played games where kids were trying to wake him up with the magic wand. And he told me about giving Sophia things because she wanted them. Something gold, I think, that he found on the playground. He found two AAA batteries on the walk, in different spots, and stopped to look at an old stuffed animal missing its stuffing. He talked about testing the batteries when we got home.

As we got close to home, after 5:30, he talked about how he liked the downstairs couch more than me and declared “I’m a couch kid.” About the first thing he said to Carly was “See these two AAA batteries I founded?” He then asked, “Have you seen my special tape?” We got his tape and he put tape on his Duplo/straw/etc. ship that he’d made in the morning. I got stew for dinner, and he tested the batteries with Carly. Or at least one, which I think they decided was out of power. He then wanted Raisin Bran for breakfast and we negotiated two slices of carrot, Raisin Bran and milk, then carrots if he wanted anything else. He ate the first carrots, then he then helped Carly glue the rest of his costume.

He then sat in his big box, the one he keeps talking about turning into a solar oven, and started drawing in it. He told me I couldn’t look, but said that mama was his helper. He then drew a sign that meant ‘no looking. ‘ He was whispering as he did all this. When he did want me to see he had me act like I was going to the bathroom, then I would see it on my way.

Then he ran into the bathroom to use it, ahead of me. He told me if I had to actually use the bathroom I could go upstairs. From the bathroom he told us jokes: why’s the chicken cross the park Interrupting cow, Why was 6 afraid of 7? After he said the punch line of that one he asked “Why would a number eat another number?” He then made his own nonsensical version of it where 1 was afraid of 10 because 10 stole 1 at the end. He claimed he had told the chicken joke to his class, perhaps during meeting time. Wasn’t entirely clear if this had happened.

I did the dishes. He watched some Pink panther and finally had his cereal. He said to Carly, “Hey mama. Know how much I love you? As much as you.” We talked about his bath and it being a hair washing day. She joked that her technique for washing his hair was spitting on it and rubbing. He didn’t like it, but declared ‘technique’ the word of the day.

He had convinced me to give him his bath, but then got upset going up the stairs. Once in the bathroom though he played in the sink. I got the tape for him, as he’s been wanting to tape closed a water bottle. He learned that water makes tape not stick, but then he kept it nice and dry and managed to tape shut the top of a bottle, and when he turned it over no water came out. I admitted that it worked a lot better than I had expected it to.

He got in the bath and I washed his hair. All went smoother than it had seemed it would. We used the hair dryer, then he heard the rain. He wanted to check out the window. I wouldn’t open an upstairs window for him to reach out of, but said he could go downstairs. With just his towel hood hanging from his head, he went downstairs and out the kitchen door. He declared that everything was wet except for outside.

Back upstairs we talked about vegetables. He asked if we had anything besides carrot, as he wanted zucchini. I said we just had mushrooms and carrots. He declared mushrooms “somewhere in the middle” of the foods, then drew a picture of circles for the food groups: “wheat, fruits, vegetables, meat, sweets…” He also drew on his hands, then put tape on them. He sang a tricycle song that he learned at preschool and danced around. He was then really taping things. He said of the tape dispenser, “This is special to me. I’m the only one that can touch it…And you. If you have blood coming out I can put it on there.”

I tried reading some of the Geronimo Stilton book on the bed, but he was really into taping everything: he got Carly’s sweatshirt to cover the pillow for his wet hair and taped it down. He taped Carly’s shirt to her shorts, put tape on my hair, taped the carrots into the bowl, etc.

I left them just before 8:30. Took him awhile to calm down, but I think he was asleep around 9.

Dead stuffed animal

Trying out the costume

Boy in the box

Taping up the bottle

Checking out the rain

Marker on his hands and tape over it

He came down right at 7. He lay on the couch for a bit, then watched Llama Llama. He talked about making the solar oven before we left but I told him we had to go to school. After he went to the bathroom, I reminded him to dry his hands. He apologized for not washing his hands, then said “Why do we say sorry? Why does sorry mean sorry?” It turned into. Silly “Sorry is sorry means sorry…” sort of discussion. We were then talking about how many water bottles he has and he said, “One for every kind of condition. Condition! Word of the day!” And as we walked out the door he had dropped a piece of bubble wrap from the Ikea furniture on the floor and he said “Bye bubble wrap! See you after school!”

Got to his classroom at 8:05. He saw Andrea and Juhyeok in the art room and went in to see what they were doing. Getting a big piece of paper for something. We then walked outside with them and I was able to say goodbye and leave. I grabbed a few more books at the library free shelves and headed home.

Came back at 2:10 for library time. Eve and August both held my hands for part of the way up. Ilana read Harold and the Purple Crayon and A Picture for Harold’s Room. August sat on my lap this time. He ran out to look for a book and chose Richard Scarry’s Cat Family’s Busy Day. I was excited to see it was a Richard Scarry book. We haven’t read enough of those books.

We walked back to class with Andrea and 3 other kids. August was very clear in telling her “I don’t want to do the goodbye time.” Which was fine, as they don’t do that on Tuesdays.

We went out and sat on the bench. He had mentioned wanting to look at Amazon to find words of the day. He claims we found words on their before, but I don’t remember that. Anyway, he mentioned it this morning, and now remembered. I pulled up Amazon and he searched for something random and found something that was a manual: “Manual! Word of the day!”

Carly had asked Israel Cassie about playing with Taya and she had told us that Grace would be babysitting Taya after school. When I first mentioned the idea to August he wasn’t too interested. But after a few minutes on the bench, when he saw Cassie picking up Taya, he changed his mind. We quickly packed up and headed after them.

They went to Cassie’s classroom, a small room downstairs in the round library building, and Cassie went in another room for her meeting. Grace had her friend Hayoon their. After a few minutes Taya suggested hide and seek. August was the first seeker. It was a small room, so quick rounds. When he went to look he saw “Movement!” And was excited to find people that way. He didn’t like to hid though, particularly as Taya counted really fast. He helped Grace be the seeker one round.

Then they were lying on the big pillows in the room and Taya was screeching. Cassie poked her head through the back door and asked them to be quieter or at least move the center of gravity to the other end of the room. August asked, “Center of gravity?” She explained what she meant. He replied, “I think we should just lower the volume.” He told Grace “I love tickle monsters…But I hate when people tickle me!” And then he thought it was hilarious when Grace was poking Hayoon and saying her name to wake her up when she was pretending to sleep.

Cassie had told them to take Taya to the cafeteria to get a snack. So we went as well. Along the way, three other 7th graders, two of whom had Carly, I think, saw Grace carrying a “Baby” and came to visit. One of them tried to tickle August or something, and he ran away giggling. He then gave them high fives. Reminded me of Korea. While Grace and Taya talked to them for a minute he was then doing some dancing in a circle.

We went inside and I read popsicle flavors, and he chose coconut strawberry. We sat at a 4th grade table (August told them they should sit at the 7th grade table, but they told him there wasn’t a 7th grade table) and they ate their popsicles. I noted how quiet he and Taya were, and he agreed it was a good way to get him to be quiet if he was too loud.

We talked to Hayoon a little about Korea. We had actually lived in Korea longer than she has, as she’s only lived there 4 years. She was born in Amsterdam. Lived someplace in the south of Korea. As we left the cafeteria Grace was calling him something, and then he remembered “Nubby!”

We went back to the room, and August mainly sat and played with all the little ‘treasures’ that Cassie has on the table. Little fidget sort of toys. He climbed up on the low bookshelves and played with them and used my phone to take photos. Cassie came back, and we left about 4:20.

We headed to our bench outside the library. We played the preschool game with him wearing headphones and building things (iPads, etc.) and giving them to the preschool. We went in to use the bathroom by the library. While sitting on the toilet he reached over and squirted two squirts of soap on the floor. He said, “Soap on the floor. Slugs.” In his StoryBots voice.

He asked to go down the elevator, so we did that. In the echoey place he made some noise, then we did time lapse and slo-mo videos of him walking and running around it. It was now close to 5 and I was trying to convince him it was time to go home. He was grumpy, as he didn’t want to go. So I talked him into going to Carly’s classroom at 5. There, he read a big sign that the kids had painted that says “Welcome” (for Get to Know You Day) and then read a sign by the door that said “Post-its are your friends”

He wanted the car home and was upset when we didn’t have it. Once on the bike though things went fine. We were home at 5:30 and he watched Pink Panther, then ate stew for dinner. He discussed preschool with Carly and told her that he had played with gears in makerspace today. Regarding taking photos of the kids’ work, he said they said he could only take photos of things he makes. That is kind of disappointing. He then wanted Carly to make something so he could take a photo of it.

He told us “I ate almost all the food in my bowl, so can I have popcorn?” I told him that ‘almost’ was the key word, and Carly said that that was ‘Approaching standard’ on the rubric. He exclaimed, “Approaching! Word of the day!” He ate the rest of the soup and got his popcorn.

He ate some, then I took him up for a bath. As he got in the bath he sang “After I show my bubbles how to walk, and talk, and eat, and bop…” It was nonsense words after that, but all of it was to the tune of Pink Panther. He wanted to wash my feet, so I put a foot up on the side of his bath and he washed it. He asked, “Why do parents have dry feet and kids don’t.” He said the bath was too cold so I poured hot water in one end. He really liked having it warm on one end Nd cold on the other.

After we got out he wanted to draw molecules. He said “Paper molecules are pretty easy.” We went in on the bed and read the Richard Scarry book and the first couple chapters of Magic Tree House #32. He then went crazy taping things with his roll of tape: He taped my hand to the Eric Carle animal book. A raisin to the dresser. Two pieces of tape where the drawers meet and he said “X marks the spot.” And he taped the iPad charging cables to the top of the dresser. I asked him if there was anything funny at school and he said Judson acting like a pig. He then taped the toothbrush to my hand as I brushed his teeth: “Thats so funny!” He was doing lots of laughing and said of the tape “It’s important to me!” And called it “Love tape.”

Carly came in to put him to sleep. I left them at 8:30. He told her that sometimes they do science experiments at school. He does them unless it is building a tower out of cups because he doesn’t need to do that. He’s also learned the primary colors. Carly asked what they were and he said, “Red, blue, and yellow. But I know you know that.” He was asleep around 9.

Hide and seek with Grace and Taya:

Discussing echolocation:

Echo area time lapse:

Echo area slo-mo:

Helping Carly glue his Halloween costume:

Putting tape on me:

A person

Library choice

With Hayoon, Taya, and Grace

Comfy

Dancing

Popsicle

Playing on the desks

Trying to be blurry

Judge August

Watching the chickens

Oxygen pants

Taping me to the book

He was up at 6:30. Carly was upstairs when he came out and brought him down. She made him hot chocolate. She said it was really hot and he said that was okay because he could savor it more. We w ere discussing something and he said “Dada says so!…’says so’, word of the day!” I said he already knew what it meant. After she left he asked, “Are the waves still moving when you’re asleep?” When i said the waves were always moving he asked about in the past: “What about when it was all lava?” He then asked, “Can you read Ramona to me?” As we read he asked, “Can I sink into the page so I can be real in the book?”

We read for awhile, then he went and played on the floor, stacking Duplos and other things on the keyboard, then having something walk across them, then tipping them off. I had to remind him that if he wanted to watch anything he wanted to do it now, as I didn’t want him to get upset if he ran out of time. He watched a single Max and Ruby, and we got walking at 7:45. Heading up Vatikim, he spotted a car the same color as ours and said, “That’s definitely a cousin to Skoda mama.”

It was just Marion when we got there. August later told me that Andrea was still driving—It wasn’t clear if there was just traffic or whether she had an appointment or something. Anyway, he told me I could ask about the schedule then leave. I asked Marion and she basically just said there wasn’t anything specific until yoga or music in the afternoon.

I left and walked home. I got back a little early to try to get him a few minutes early so we could get to the nurse for our flu shots. I peeked my head in but they were sitting down for goodbye time. He saw me, but stayed. Carly had dropped off the paperwork and was going to meet us at the nurse. I heard them say the goodbyes to each student, then sing the goodbye song. I then got him and carried him out and told him we were going to the nurse to get a flu shot. He didn’t like it, but the whole response was much better then last year. Carly met us at the nurse and he sat on my lap and got his shot on the leg, then watched as she gave me a shot on my shoulder. He didn’t want a bandaid, but liked the idea of one when she said she could just give him a special one. He chose a Superman one and put it on my shirt, as usual, so he could see it.

We went over to the cafeteria and he chose a small chocolate muffin. I got one as well, which I wouldn’t usually do. I also got a small cappuccino. As we walked to the table he said, “I like that you got a chocolate muffin too.” He told me he had talked to Andrea about taking photos, but they hadn’t done it today. He also had yoga but didn’t have much to tell me. He couldn’t remember the yoga teacher’s name, and suggested something like “Ms. Lir”, similar to the creative movement teacher’s name, Liron.

He finished his muffin and then had me pretend to do a surprise party for him, jumping out from under the table. That’s from the Max and Ruby that he watched. I asked how his leg was doing from the shot and he said, “I think the nurse forgot.” He was copying Carly, who had said she wasn’t sure she was actually given a shot. He asked for his iPad and spent some time with Night Sky: “This is a beautiful Galaxy.” He switched to ShapeKit and made an animation.

We then headed over to the library. We returned Hilo 3 and Beezus and Ramona. He took photos back in the kids area and I found the Geronimo Stilton series. He and I sat and read the start of Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye and he liked it. He played on the rug and had us do a preschool game, having the students visit his planet, where they could jump around and fly.

Carly came and found us and we headed home around 5. I stopped to get a drink and saw a lot of books on the free shelf and got some Calvino, Beckett, Camus, and others. August complained about me looking at books and asked why I like books so much.

We got home and suddenly August was playing by himself again on the rug, humming the same tune as this morning. He built a ship out of Duplos and straw things and other parts. Carly and I made sandwiches out of the stew she had made, and August ate it in the bowl. He was excited about it. Carly asked what he did at school. He didn’t answer, and sort of patted his head, and she said “Pat your head?” He ran with it, saying “And moved my hand.” A couple minutes later he was talking about the word ‘stupid’ and said, “Because some people need to be called stupid…like people that like wars.” Carly at first thought he said ‘rules’ instead of ‘wars’. A rather different meaning.

He then wanted to play more preschool game on the couch: “Can we get back to our game? Can I tell you a quick thing? I love you!” It was the game where he was a student watching his music during rest time. He then used headphones and played with Medly. When it came time for a bath he did some excellent delaying. He was hungry, so had some Raisin Bran, then got me to read Preschool to the Rescue. Carly took him up to his bath, where he found the missing spirograph piece in with his bath toys. I heard him washing himself in the sink, and he told Carly he needed her extendo arm, I think to reach his towel.

I went up and took over. He was dancing naked, watching himself in the mirror. He then showed me “a good exercise for you for your arms and legs…you pump your arms up and down.” He then wanted to draw molecules. He first drew a fabric molecule. I then suggested a plastic molecule: “Ohhhh. Wellll. Okay.” Then soap: “Oh, well. That’s pretty tricky to draw.”

He then sat on the couch next to me and said, “When I get an idea I just hang on to it and you can’t change my mind…I just hold on to it. You can’t make me change.” He didn’t have a clear example of something, but he was clearly talking about how we couldn’t persuade him to change his mind on things. I think this might be a bit of a reflection of something Beezus says about Ramona, about not being able to change Ramona’s mind.

In Skybrary we then read Up, Up, Up! It’s Apple Picking Time and Perimeter, Area, Volume. He declared ‘circumference’ the word of the day. He then went back to “I’m sticking onto my idea!…cuz you’re not going to stop me…And besides…” The idea was that we do reading before brushing his teeth.

We brushed his teeth then turned on just the lamp. We did one round of the preschool game, where he celebrates his birthday after coming from mother dimension and climbing in the window. The gifts he received (that he brought with him) were an “any kind of candy in the world machine, air conditioner, a wood chip machine…” And the machine that would take him home and allow the students to visit.

He used the bathroom, and heard Carly watching something downstairs. He said, “Mama is having much more fun.” He then had an idea where he would get to go downstairs with Carly, and I would go to bed by myself. He allowed that it wouldn’t happen today, but he wanted me to say it could happen sometime in the future. He was then quoting Max and Ruby lines like “You can’t make little miss miracle walk the plank.”

Turned lights off complete about 8:45. He rolled over on the bed and said, “Someday you’re not going to like me any more cuz I’m so bad.” Apparently he had said something similar to Carly the other day. I assured him that was not the case. He was asleep just before 9.

Playing in the morning:

His arm spinning:

Arm spinning slo-mo:

Animation in the cafeteria:

Flying on his planet:

Robot heads to school

Playing with the blinds

Band-aid for his flu shot

Chocolate muffin

Animating in the cafeteria

A photo in a mirror

His ship

Drawing molecules

Halloween costume so far

I slowly woke him up at 7:30. He did a lot of rolling over and closing his eye and rolling around on pillows before we went downstairs. He got his shoes and went out to Carly. Came back in a few minutes later and got his iPad and took it outside. They came in after a bit and he got on the couch next to me and listened to Medly with his headphones on for a few minutes. Then did some of a math app. He used the bathroom and got a treat, then went upstairs to Carly to get clothes. He was up there for awhile, not sure what he was doing, until they came down at 8:30. He played a music app and I got his vitamins.

I made fried eggs and toast for breakfast. We ate outside. He finished his egg, but August has refused to eat grapes this year, so I had put some on his plate. It turned out he doesn’t like the stem part. I got him to eat most of one, but he wouldn’t eat the tip. We went inside and thawed some mango and he ate a good amount of that so I made him the peanut butter and maple syrup toast he wanted.

He ate that, then played on Excel with Carly, doing different big numbers and having it do addition. I took a shower. While I did that he made a spicy soup that was cooking on the stove when I came down and he was on the couch listening to Medly with his headphones.

We got ready and left at 10:50. In the car her asked,”How many kilometers in a light year?” So we looked it up. He told me “There’s other universes but they’re trillions of light years away from us.”

We went first to the complex with Ace Hardware. We first went to the iDigital store to see about getting Carly’s laptop fixed. Turns out they would send it to another store. The guy who was there told us to come back and talk to his manager in a few minutes. So we walked over to the pharmacy and Carly got a gift certificate for the guy that watered the plants in her classroom over the summer and we went to a home goods store and got some hand towels. We went back to the iDigital store and he told us we could just take it to a branch down in Tel Aviv that has the repair shop onsite.

We drove over to the Tiv Taam complex and had a hard time finding a parking spot. Don’t know why though, because it turned out Tiv Taam was pretty empty. August and I walked to the art store and ended up buying a plain black shirt for his Halloween costume and a sparkly pink water bottle for downstairs at home so we don’t have to keep taking the adventure water bottle in and out of the backpack. We then went and found Carly in Tiv Taam. He spotted her through the windows as we walked up. He stayed with her and got his second errands treat (earlier, Carly had totally played her hand when she first told him we were going on errands and he could have lots of treats and screen time—although he didn’t end up watching anything) and I ran and found a few more things. At the checkout the woman showed us that if we spent 60 shekels more we’d save an extra 50 shekels. I ran and grabbed 3 more bottles of wine, which should have been 70 more. She then said we were still short, so we added yet another bottle. We are now well stocked for wine. Also, he had heard me talking about how I had a book club meeting this coming week and he asked a bit later “What’s your book club port?” And as we were putting groceries on the conveyor belt he said he had a “Beer sensor.”

We put the groceries in and Carly took back the cart. I put August in the car and someone was waiting for our spot so I drove and we picked up Carly. We stopped to get gas, and Carly read much of chapter 6 of Beezus and Ramona to him on the drive back. Impressive, as she gets carsick reading. We stopped at the school and she took some journals into her classroom. While we waited, I looked up some ones to tell him. He particularly liked “Why are pirates called pirates? They just aaargh.” And “What do you call a donkey with three legs? A wonkey.” He made ‘wonkey’ a word of the day. And “How do all the oceans say hello to each other? They wave!” And “Where does the queen keep her armies? Up her sleevies.” He told Carly this one and kept repeating it. As well as “What do you call a train that sneezes? Achoo-choo train.”

He was telling nonsense jokes in the car on the way home, then I told the Marshy-like joke “Why didn’t the flower bloom? Climate change” August laughed, then said “That kind of makes sense actually.” He then said one like “Why did the horse eat the horse?” And I said something about it being a cannibal. He sang, “Cannibal? Word of the day!”

At home I started trying one more thing with Carly’s computer, then we had some lunch. He had Raisin Bran and milk. They had seen the cereal at the store. He dripped on his shorts and wanted dry ones so we went upstairs and changed those. He noticed his shirt was wet as well so we changed that too.

We then sat and finished Beezus and Ramona. We then went back to the finding-a-cat-in-the-park game. As the cat we went upstairs to the bedroom for bed time. I asked him about rest time at school. He says he doesn’t use a mat: “I like the cold floor. I use my hat as a pillow.” And he volunteered that he rests at snack and lunch: “I just lean against the table during snack and lunch.”

Downstairs we made pyramids out of Duplos. Or rather, I made the pyramids and he put things like coins in them and was then the archeologist discovering them. He told me that he had actually fallen asleep at lunch time once, sitting in a chair, and the teachers didn’t wake him at rest time. I’d say he was making it up, but it was quite specific. I need to ask his teachers about it.

We got out the keyboard and were playing with GarageBand, then he was playing with the sampler. He kept doing that on his own and I went and was making a list of possible places to visit when my parents are here.

He switched to Maps and was finding places and marking them and taking photos and screenshots of them. I went upstairs to do more computer work, and he came up to show me something. He was looking at maps and taking photos and particularly liked the island of Annoban, which is part of Equitorial Guinea: Annobón Natural Reserve: https://goo.gl/maps/hcS1vggrbvT2

He went to the bathroom, then we went downstairs and he wanted oatmeal. Carly made him mango and oatmeal. When she suggested he eat outside he exclaimed, “That’s a great idea!” He then had chocolate milk, which he likes hot. He explained, “I like to savor it. I’m turning into mama.” He’s also been saying “Sorry” a lot, even when he doesn’t need to, which is a Carly thing as well. He told us “I like to say sorry.” He was quoting Hilo a lot today: “It’s my book report.” And “Neat…Not neat!”

Carly had been making stew much of this time. August and I sat on the couch and read chapter 1 of Ramona the Pest on the iPad. He then was wanting to play imagining games: him killing pirates, etc. After the pirate one I said I wouldn’t play anymore of them. We went upstairs, and he played with Tabletop on the couch.

I went on a run, and Carly was going to give him a bath. But Chuck and Cherie called on FaceTime and they were still talking when I got back. He was doing rat, and drew molecules of his hair and a crystal for them. I took a shower, then she gave him a shower. He and I read Izzy Impala’s Imaginary Illnesses and Perimeter, Area, and Volume on Skybrary, then we got ready for bed. I left him and Carly at 8:40, and he was asleep about 9.

Time lapse August:

Slow motion August:

Recording some vocals:

Destroying pirates:

Waking up

His spicy soup

Wanting a drone

Buying his new toothbrush

Pyramids

Oatmeal outside and his new water bottle

His art. Molecules are on the first sheet.

He woke up just after 7:20 and called for me. I came up and he sat on the bed for a moment, then walked downstairs and asked why the kitchen door was partially open. Carly said she had just come in and he said he wanted to go outside with her. He got his shoes and they went out and sat at the table. She came in and made him warm chocolate milk and said he looked like he was meditating. She went back out and they sat and talked. He asked her how her day had been yesterday and she told him about the South Africa role-play her students did. He told her “You can’t be a government just by making conversations.”

They came in for a minute, then went back outside and played a shop game, where Carly was a shopkeeper and it turned into a math game. father awhile they came in and he played with the Sky Guide app on his iPad. He went and used the bathroom, then after he was all done he was suddenly over on the rug drawing something, all on his own. When he was done he came and showed it to Carly. He said it was a sign that said “No leaving the water on when you’re scrubbing.” And he explained the drawing. Carly then went and helped him hang it up in the bathroom next to the sink so we would remember to turn off the water while we scrub our hands. Added bonus was that he then went and put the markers away on his own.

He played Medly on the couch. He really likes the “Gallop” sample song and listened to it over and over. He had me be someone that didn’t like him until he made apps. And had me be a teacher and he was dancing to music outside, interrupting rest time. I made pancakes, and as I finished those up my parents called on Skype and we talked to them as we had breakfast. They leave tomorrow afternoon for their long trip to Rome to start their cruise. They set up tours for some of their ports of call along the way.

After we were done with skype and breakfast, I went up for a shower. Carly and August were starting to play school. When I came back down they were outside, and August was sitting on the swing playing something on his iPad. He came in to get the hammer and used it to break open a tree thing. They were back inside at 10:30 and played more school. For story time Carly asked him to get a book. August insisted she make one up instead. She told a story about Spunky the robot and a friend Hilda the hamster. Spunky wanted to build a rocket. They got August to help. They went to a spaceship supply store. First in Hilda’s hamster wheel, which didn’t get them anywhere. The store was run by Gertrude the galloping lobster. Carly had me make noises when they discussed getting cords, as I don’t like cords. They built the rocket ship and ended with them heading to Mars.

Before we left, August helped me come up with a Teegan and August story as well. August went over to Teegan’s house, and they chose a new tree in the park next to her house to open a door in. Got as far as them going down a tunnel.

We left at 12. Carly drove. August and I shared a bar, then we read Beezus and Ramona, the Ramona and the Apples chapter. We found street parking west of Allenby Street, which was nice, and got walking. We got to a little shop that Carly had seen when she was here with a school tour. It had end tables that she liked. August liked the little dancing things in the window, and wondered why some weren’t working. He then looked at some water meters and was excited that one kept starting and stopping. He then found a metal circle on the sidewalk. When he realized it was attached he wanted to take a photo of it.

We got to a coffee shop (August was clear that that was the first thing on our agenda) called Shenkin 17. Although I guess I should stop calling them coffee shops, as actual coffee shops are few and far between. They are all cafes that have coffee options. Good for finding food, but bad for space to hang out and for coffee options. And bad for prices.

We got a table outside and August took photos of dogs and other things. And people, until Carly told him that wasn’t polite. When it came time to order August excitedly ordered a mango, banana, and strawberry fruit shake. Although when it came it was mainly banana. For food we got sweet potato raviolis and a cholent with meat. Carly knew of the dish, but I didn’t. Carly and August were doing a sort of I Spy while we waited and she suggested ‘logo’ as a word of the day, but he wasn’t feeling it. August was singing “Girl At The End Of The World” on and off through the day. Don’t think we’ve heard it in a few weeks. He also sang the Sun Salutation song and excitedly said he remembered more of it.

Food came and it was good, although August didn’t eat much, as asking for snacks in the park a few minutes later would show. He was kind of hyper at the table, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous and jumpy, expecting him to knock something over or get hurt.

When we were done they went in to the bathroom and I paid. We then went across the street to the park, Mordehai Garden. Carly went on the swing and he got on the one next to her. They were squeaking and August said “I can feel it buzzing I have very sensitive hands…I can feel like a glacier moving…a tree growing.” He then had a feeling machine that people could use to feel things like that. He told a couple of his jokes, then he politely asked Carly, “Mama, I know that swings is your favorite thing, but could you please do other things too?” We went over to the play structure and Carly sat and read. He asked me, “Have we ever been here before?” I said we hadn’t. He replied, “Oh yeah! I’ve never seen that atom before. So we’ve never been here.” I went down the slide, then he excitedly climbed up and slid down on top of me.

He and Carly went over to the big round swing and I had a turn to do a little reading until he called me over for a snack. I sat on the ground and he ate some corn crackers and lay on the ground and sang the sun salutation song. Carly was still lying in the swing. August stood up at one point and told her “I want to see your pretty eyes.”

When we were done there we got walking, headed east. We turned north on Rothschild, walking up the green strip in the middle of the boulevard. We stopped to play at the little playgrounds along the way. There was a floor piano at one and we had a lot of fun with that. It had three sets of sounds and one of them was robot noises.

At the next one he went in and climbed on a jeep play structure with Carly and I read for a couple minutes. We got up to the arts complex with Habina and Leonard Bernstein Squares and walked through that. We walked west, down a side street and past a small park, then south on King George Street. August got off the bike and did a good amount of walking. He stopped to look at some trees with their trunks wrapped with string.

We got to the big park, Meir Garden. August said we weren’t going in, but we walked in just to take a peak. We stopped at a pond and looked at the fish. August claimed he saw tadpoles. We went over and looked at the play structures, but August wasn’t interested. We continued on around the park, and he wanted to stop and play on some round platforms that were in the exercise equipment area. We played some preschool game, and cat on a pile of garbage in the park game. He went and hung on some of the exercise bars, and listened to the music coming out of the speaker that some guys had strapped to the exercise equipment.

We continued walking and got to the car and left by 4:30. We had counted up to cat 125 by the time we were done. He used his headphones to listen to Medly on the ride home.

At home he looked at the pile of ‘treasure’ that had accumulated at the bottom of the pocket for his water bottle in the backpack. I had taken it all out before we left. One of the items was a AA battery. He wanted to test it, and we ended up using the electromagnet experiment in the magnet kit to compare it versus a battery we knew was good. We decided they both affected the compass pretty well, so it was worth keeping it. He found the Spirograph box and wanted to do that, but we couldn’t find the big piece to it, kind of critical, and ended up cleaning out the drawer of art supplies. No luck, but at least the drawer is clean.

Carly made popcorn and he lay on the floor eating it. He then had the idea of watching something while eating popcorn and he watched some Pink Panther. Carly came over by him, and as he was eating popcorn he bit his tongue. Pretty hard. There was a fair amount of blood, and he wasted no time wiping it on his shirt, and then on Carly’s arm and on her shirt. I brought tissues, but he kept squirming and trying to wipe it on anything he could. He kept saying, “I need something to lick!” I ended up changing my shirt as well by the time all was said and done.

He requested a pancake for dinner, so Carly made that, then he did some music with Medly. We had had some sort of word of the day earlier, but we had both forgotten it. He suggested “Can we read a book so we can find- I love reading books.” We read some Beezus and Ramona. He chose ‘scampered’ for a word of the day.

He was then singing and recording audio on, I think, his iPad and walked up to his bath, recording everything along the way. He played in the bath for quite awhile and just kept wanting to play and play. Finally, Carly told him she had to wash him, and he sort of fell apart. Don’t think much washing happened. When he calmed down I read more Beezus and Ramona to him, through chapter 5, and we got him ready for bed. I left them around 8:30 and he was asleep sometime after that.

Being a kid dancing outside the preschool:

Water meters:

The sun salutation song:

Playground foot piano:

Robot sounds:

With his music

Getting a kiss from Gramma

The dancing things

Photo he took of me

Resting after lunch

On the swings

Down the slide

With Carly in the swing

Playing on the Jeep

Looking in the pond

Playing in the exercise area

Organizing his kitchen so it is nice and neat

Managed to get him up by 7:20 today. Still a slow wakeup though. As he was still lying down and avoiding opening his eyes, I asked if he wanted to go swimming. About a minute later he put up his arm and gave me a thumbs up. He watched one Pink Panther, then as we were getting ready to go asked “What’s the difference between ‘wear’ and ‘where’?” Of course, I didn’t know what he was saying at first, and didn’t know if he was saying ‘where’ or ‘whale’, so he had to clarify. I explained the difference and wrote them on the chalkboard so he could see how they were spelled. He then said “I’ll explain the difference” and recited how they were spelled as he followed along on the board.

We got going and he told me a joke: “Why did the eel not feel?…Because it’s dead!” We were walking at 7:42. About halfway he asked me if 5 squares could make a square. I told him how 4 could, or 5 could make a plus sign, but he was insistent and explained how he had done it out of the straw things, using his hands to demonstrate. Eventually, I realized he meant a cube and asked him if that was the case. He said it was, and then I described the 6 sides of the cube. That was what he had meant, forgetting that the square he would make on the top would also be the bottom.

At school we went and dropped off the hummus. Eve was there, and we caught Lillian right before she headed to class. So August was excited to put the hummus in the cooler and he gave Eve a high five.

They were already in a meeting in his class when we got there, but I was able to steer him over by Andrea and he joined the circle and I left.

I walked home, then drove back to school. When I picked him up he spotted me through the door (another parent was taking up the doorway) and was waving to me. The first thing he said to me was “Why didn’t you put a bar in my snack?” I said it was Friday and the preschool provides snack so I didn’t include as much. He said he hadn’t wanted the cereal they had provided. He went straight out to the bench to eat. He was surprised by the tuna sandwich in his lunch – he hadn’t even opened the container. I told him I was going to start putting the drawing inside the pink container so he’d have to at least open it up.

Carly came and said hi, then went and took the car home to do some grading there. He told me they had had tea party sometime before rest time today. And they had music time. After rest time he worked on patterns with things like seashells, rocks, woods, twigs, and leaves. He said there was no maker space. He ran over and asked Andrea why and she just said they don’t do that on Friday. She was busy so we didn’t ask more, so not sure what happened to the studio time that August said didn’t happen yesterday.

We started to walk over to the pool. We spotted a big black beetle at the foot of the preschool stairs and August gently played with it for a couple minutes, then said goodbye to it. We were about to the pool when Carly called and said the floaties were at home. We stopped to talk about it and he said he still wanted to swim but he wanted Carly to bring the floaties. I think we continued a preschool game we’d been doing, then quickly got changed and walked to meet her and got the floaties from her in the parking lot. She headed home and we headed to the pool. We saw Liz and Lillian along the way and Lillian told her mom that August had brought hummus in the morning. Then two women rode by on bicycles. They said hi to August. One was Rebecca, and I’m not sure who the other woman is – I think it is the woman August thought was Rebecca once.

We got to the pool little after 4. Only two other people there. We played in the pool. He was swimming around a lot on his own. He made up one imagining game where I was climbing a cliff and found him just lying half-way up, having glen from his dimension. He said the word of the day was ‘according to’, from Magic School Bus and the girl that’s always saying “According to my research…” He asked me what the biggest measure of liquid volume is and I couldn’t think of anything besides liters and gallons. He had me set a reminder on him to look it up later. He also asked which animal has the most babies. He thought about it and said, “I think seahorses maybe…seahorses can store up to 20,000 babies.”

We got out of the pool at 5 and sat over by the tables for a few minutes as he ate a little and we got ready to go. He really wanted Carly to pick us up, so I had him call her and ask. We then got walking, and I headed up the street to see how far we could get before we saw her. Somehow we missed her, and she ended up at the school but we had walked a few blocks. She came and got us. August then seemed to claim that he had seen her drive by the other way, but he hadn’t said anything. He said “I didn’t think you would care” or something like that.

We got home at 5:40. He watched some Max and Ruby. Ate two spinach pancakes for dinner. I made the first one, then Carly made him a second one. Playing on the couch he bonked my lip. He asked if submarines could go to the bottom of the ocean and said, “Remember water weight.” We read some Hilo, first reading the throw up part, then jumping ahead in Hilo 4 to where we were and finished the book for a second time. He got a bathroom treat and declared of the bag of new mall candies: “Hearts is medium, jelly beans is small, and M and Ms is extra small.” He Sid something about eating toilet paper, and said, “Actually, toilet paper can be eaten by beavers.”

Took him up to his bath. Played for a bit, then I washed his hair. We used the hair dryer, then Carly cut his hair. He told her, “Concrete’s not solid…it moves…I just know it. Cuz I have a computer as a brain.” I’m not quite sure what he was talking about, although he’s watched a few videos about concrete. I think he might be thinking about how cement actually hardens not by drying, but because it gets wet.

He got his lollipop, then asked to look at our old photos. He got me looking at old baby photos of him. He and I walked up to the bedroom. Carly was in the bathroom, brushing her teeth. He popped in, said, “19 billion rotations per seconds” to her with no explanations, and came on into the bedroom.

We read the rest of the Beezus and Ramona chapter about checkers and Ribsy getting locked in the bathroom. He then played the preschool game and wanted to have a kid not like him until he builds things.

We turned the lights off at 9 and I tried singing. He wanted a Teegan and August story but I said it was too late. He got really sad about this. Instead, I started to make up a Teegan and August theme song, about how they were best friends and exploring the universe one door at a time. A lot of rolling around and thinking he was falling asleep. Then at close to 9:40 he rolled over and said, “Dada, when I see garbage I see a pile of parts and the trillion ways they go together.” That’s a reference to Hilo and the robot Izzy, who builds things. A minute later he asked about the alarm clock app on my phone and why it senses if you snore. He was then asleep at 9:45 or a bit after.

The beetle:

In the pool:

His map of Tel Aviv:

Dropping off the hummus

Explaining things

In the pool

His piece of pancake that looked like a bat

Lollipop after hair cutting

Map of the plan for our trip to Tel Aviv

Got August up at 7:25. I had started at 7:10, but when I couldn’t get him to wake up, and I saw that he’d scratched his face in his sleep, I trimmed all of his fingernails and toenails while he slept. I read the first couple of chapters of Hilo 4 to him downstairs and we were doing well for a quick leaving. But then he felt betrayed that I wasn’t letting him watch Pink Panther. Should have told him in advance. So I let him watch one Pink Panther. Worked okay, as I realized I had to get the bike out of the car anyway.

When we got to school at 8:10 he saw they were going to divide into groups and Andrea took a group up to the center grass area to ride the tricycles. August said he hates when they do that, but eventually he let me leave. I think he just doesn’t like the doing things as a group/having to wait parts. When he talked about riding the tricycle around up there before he sounded like he liked it. He was standing at the foot of the stairs watching the kids playing down there. I watched him for a minute before leaving.

I worked on editing the book. Got that finished after close to 4 hours.

I picked him up at 2:55. Andrea said he had a great day. He worked on the pirate ship a lot, working with Millie and with Yaya for a long time. A lot of things that didn’t work, but good learning. For studio time they chose what they wanted for tomorrow. He chose maker space. Apparently they switched studio time to Friday for some reason. He said that the afternoon was “Just a normal day that PKB did last year…a little dance, a little bit more, then we went home.” Interesting that he remembers PKB like that. They only had specials after rest time twice a week last year, unlike this year when they have one every day.

On the bench I told him what Andrea had said about him playing with Yaya and Millie. He corrected me: “Actually, not playing, working. We were WORKING with the box. We weren’t pretending it’s a pirate ship. It’s real.” He was eating and spotted Dion running the after school class: “Oh! It’s Dion! I’ll watch them.” He went and sat on the stairs and watched for a few minutes.

He came back and we played some preschool game. I sent Carly a message, and so then he was sending her stuff. He typed ‘hi’, then I suggested I could help him type more real words. With my help figuring out and finding letters he typed all of ‘I am drinking water’. He went back and watched Dion a bit more. We played the preschool game, where he had the kids visiting his planet. He had them take a Magic School Bus to a structure made out of noodles and they were eating the noodles. That’s straight from a Magic School Bus episode.

He talked about wanting to do something on his iPad, but then changed his mind and said he wanted to go over on the playground. The weather has obviously cooled, as this is the first time he’s suggested we go to the playground. He went up on the small structure with a slide and was playing on it. Candy came around and brought a car over and asked him to play with her. She then went and got a plastic container and brought it back and asked him to play again. We started to roll the cars down the slide. But before I could really get him to play with Candy at all she disappeared. Headed home, I think.

He and I were then gathering leaves and berries for him to drop down the slide. He sang a little “Static electricity is really cool” song after a little twig with leaves on it stuck to the slide. He went over to the big structure and went in the tube by himself and was hanging out there when Carly called. I let him answer and he did the full phone call with her. They arranged for him to play 20 more minutes, then she’d come over.

He and I played a bit more, then we went over to the elementary school and used the bathroom. He had the idea of using a Pez as a bathroom treat, since we weren’t at home. He had a Pez as we walked back to the playground.

Carly came and we headed out, getting the iHerb box as we left and putting all the stuff in our backpacks and the back of the bike. I tried to find a recycling bin for the box but failed, but then remembered there was one along the street after a couple blocks. I caught up with them. He sang the tune, and sometime the words, to the “Runalong Jimmy…” song he learned at school. As we got close to home he had me stop at one point so he could see a number on the side of a garbage can. He explained “This is a game I play by myself.” It sounds like he spots something as we are moving, closes his eyes, then opens them and tries to spot the thing again. He played that for the rest of the way home.

We were home at 5:30. He wanted to make a big solar oven out of one of the boxes that he wanted to cut up. But then he was having a hard time. He used blocks to make a square to show the size he wanted. Carly was making some food for herself, and only barely pushed back on his idea, arguing they should make the big version (it would be a lot less cutting, for one). August was making his grumpy noises and said “If Mama’s not gonna do it I’m gonna do something else!”

Carly got a message from her parents saying they were headed to San Carlos despite a tropical storm (Sergio) was headed towards it, as they’ve never been there for a big storm. I told Carly to tell them we’d rebuild.

August was excited about the idea of a tuna sandwich for dinner. I made one, a melt with cheese, and he ate the whole thing. He said he wanted one for lunch tomorrow as well. We read. Few chapters of Hilo 4. He chose ‘positronic brain’ as the word of the day (they use it in Hilo 4). I was pretty sure that was made up by Isaac Asimov but looked it up to make sure. I told August it was, and also about positrons. He was then searching for random things in the Farlex Dictionary app. He found things like TH200 and the number 233. He kept asking “What does this mean? What does this mean?” And said learning words was fun. Carly told August that a cat had come in her classroom and peed on the floor, but he was too into the searching to be impressed: “Acronym! Word of the day!…Justice! Word of the day!…Institution! Word of the day!…Instruction! Word of the day!… Paragraph! Word of the day!” For one definition that Carly was reading to him (he had found some acronym for a government organization or something, he asked “Can I read it to you in mooka mook?” Which was cool because we haven’t talked about mooka mook much recently.

Carly was taking him up for his bath. He was stalling, and wanted some water drink. I told him I’d make him some and he could drink it upstairs. I brought him up a cup and let him drink it while standing in the bath. He said, “I can’t believe Im allowed to do this.” He was then setting it in the water and wondered it if would actually rest on the bottom if we added a little more water drink. I poured some in and it did. He then realized that if he drank some it would start to float again. I said I liked how he turns things into science experiments and he got a big smile.

Carly did his bath, and as they finished up she was asking him math questions and realized he could answer questions like 1000-2000, 1-2, 2-4, and 2-5 in his head. He has internalized the concept of negative numbers and the number line.

Carly tried to brush his teeth but he got really upset, saying I let him wait until after we read. I had let him wait until after he finished a snack. Which wasn’t needed today, since he’d eaten a big dinner. I went up and put on his pajamas and brushed his teeth. We read more Hilo 4. He had me re-read several times the part where Hilo and Izzy throw up breakfast burritos to get out of school and kept laughing at it. He then acted out throwing up breakfast burritos.

Out in the play area he took all the pillows of the couch and said he was dancing with them, using all the dance he’s learned at school. Carly was sending messages to Cherie and August wanted to pass along a message and chose “Poodle McButters.”

He went to the bathroom and wanted another treat, but I said no as he had already brushed his teeth. I told him he could have it in the morning. He eventually accepted this, although wasn’t happy about it. I left them at 8:40.

‘Graduate school’ was another word of the day. And he insisted on Carly writing it down on her phone. He had asked her to tell a story about 17th grade. He was also upset about his mistakes at school, particularly a tower falling down. And he said the teachers don’t talk about how mistakes are good. Which is clearly just a perception, as Andrea was just today telling me about how it was really cool that he and Yaya and Millie were learning through trial and error with the pirate ship. I also heard some crying and it was because he was sad about not being able to come down and see me. He was asleep about 9.

The names of the sheep:

Playing on the slide:

Stuff down the slide:

Singing the song in different keys:

The game he plays by himself:

Pillow dancing 1:

Pillow dancing 2:

With the sheep

Watching Dion

Resting on the slide

Another tube

Water drink in the bath

I started trying to wake him up at 7:10 today. Not much luck, so I carried him down at 7:20. He watched a Pink Panther and we got ready to go. We were walking at 7:42. he told me jokes as we walked: “Why was the horse eating a balloon?…Because it’s popable.” “Knock Knock…Elephant squid…Chomp!” An easy drop off as they were already meeting. Andrea got August and I left at left 8:08

At home I moved the furniture: the Zinnie bed back to the Zinnie room, and the shelves and chair to the office. Also hung up some art and moved the desk to face differently in the corner. Then I did a lot of book editing.

Came back to school at 3 and sat and studied Hebrew while August had dance. He had creative movement earlier in the day, and they celebrated Hector’s birthday. So all he had had for snack was some cake. And he only ate the bar from his lunch. He seemed surprised when there was quesadilla in there, even though that was what he had requested. I don’t think he had opened his actual lunch. He told me he didn’t dress up for dance class. He later said it was an optional thing, and Taya’s idea from last week. Andrea and Marion told me they had an interesting moment where he went over to the building area and did some parallel play with other kids. There was some silent interaction with other kids for pieces, etc. but he was clearly watching what they were building and building on his own. Marion said that she had him reading a simple book to her and he could read it all. She planted the idea that he could read it to the class sometime. He said no to that idea, but was fine reading to her. I think they are doing the assessment for deciding the reading groups.

We were sitting on the bench, eating, and Marion was taking care of all the plants. Amelia was talking to her, and August went over and talked to both of them about the plants. He told Amelia that one of the pots was a pinch pot, and that he had made a pinch pot. Marion mentioned something about needing to check in on those. He also talked to Marion about halloween costumes, telling her he’s going to be an oxygen molecule. She said she’s going to be a dog with, I think, Anna and Vicky. Marion spotted a gecko and called him over to see it. She thought it was one they had seen earlier without a tail, and now it was regrowing. He asked her if gecko change color, and she told him he was talking about chameleons. Also, she now has two pots that look like sheep outside the door. She told August he could name them and he chose Balkin and Bark. Finally, he found a googley eye on the ground and ran in to put it with the supply of googley eyes in the art room.

Carly showed up and I walked them to the car. As I got him in the car he declared ‘obviously’ the word of the day. I left them and walked home. They headed to the mall to get material for his oxygen molecule costume. I left them at 4:53, and they were home at 5:30.

He watched the simple machines episode of Magic School Bus, then watched a single Max and Ruby story. He ate soup for dinner and said, “My favorite flavor of Pop Smart us strawberry.” That’s a Plants Versus Zombies reference. He told me the book he read to Marion was about “Egg…it was about four eggs.” And he again talked about Andrea’s questions: “Why does Ms. Andrea ask so many questions?…Learning questions.”

He requested that I give him his bath. Carly took him up and let him play with the spray bottle. I came up. He went in and saw the chair in its new spot and said, “I love this chair so much!” He declared he wanted us to read there after his bath.

I gave him a bath and he sang a song that went “Speak in different languages…konichiwa, buenos dias…” He said it’s the hello song for the creative movement class. He then made up a “We speak in different languages” song that he wanted me to record him singing.

After his bath we played the preschool game in chair then went back in to the bed. We talked about how Maaian was going on maternity leave soon and that Korea Megan was having a baby right now (c-section) back in the U.S. August said he hoped Maaian would bring the baby to school.

We finished Hilo 3, the read that Monster Book of Dimensions book in Skybrary. He said good night to Carly and I sang some songs. I then told an August and Teegan story where she first meets August – he supplied a lot of the ideas. More singing, then he was really requesting Carly. I switched with her at 9:10. Carly got him to sleep by 9:30. She said he doesn’t think he’s the worst student now. So that’s progress. But he says Leonard is the worst student now, as he sees him breaking a lot of rules. When August is supposed to be sleeping but wants to talk instead, Carly says she’s going to leave the room—unless he talks about preschool. An impressively sneaky way to get him to talk more about school.

Forgetting the song:

We speak in different languages song:

Jellybean from the new mall candy:

Waking

Office transformed

Discussing the plants

Gecko

We were quick this morning: I tried getting him up starting at 7:15 but he didn’t get up until 7:30. We went downstairs and he looked at his iPad for just a minute before needing to use the bathroom. We got ready to go and were walking by 7:48. As we got walking he asked about the tire he had found yesterday. It was a tire that had come off a garbage can. We had returned it across the street to where we saw a garbage can missing its wheel, and we spotted it where we’d left it.

On the walk to school he said he had the radio on so I sang songs most of the way to school: A Ah Apple, ZYX, counting by 2s, etc. As we walked into the school I was asking him about who he might want to play with. He told me “I don’t need any friends.” We got to his class just after 8:05. They were still outside.

I walked home and worked on editing the Sabeel book and did some cleaning. I walked back to the school for library time. I stopped to fill my water bottle and I spotted a guy walking out of the school and he waved at me. It took me a moment to figure out who it was: the younger guy that works at VIPizza. He may have just been delivering pizzas, but he was inside the campus and I would think they’d only be allowed to the gate. So I’ll have to ask him next time we go there.

Went and helped the class get ready for library time at 2:10 and we walked up. Ilana read them two Maurice Sendak books: Where the Wild Things Are and Pierre. He sat on the other side of the rug from me today. For checkout time he chose Preschool to the Rescue again. He had checked it out once last year.

Back at the classroom he showed me is art he had made today. He said it was a forest, but changed his mind and said it was just nature stuff. they had used leaves and needles and sticks and glued them on paper. He also showed me the pirate person he had made on Friday, in the pirate ship. And he told me about maker space: “I did maker space. I made-ed a really hard circuit. It lit up a light. I had the idea to turn off the lights to see it.”

Out on the bench I remembered how he’d wanted to talk to his teachers about breaking the iPad stand. We went in and asked, and neither of them knew about the incident he was concerned about. He showed them the iPad stand he was worried about and Andrea assured him there was a part on it that comes off easy but that it was back on and not broken. Later, Carly and I asked him how he felt about it now and he felt much better.

Andrea told me he had done something with the overhead projector today and played a tangrams app in Maker Space. On the bench August told me you had actual pieces when you did it and we figured out this was what he had done: https://www.playosmo.com/en/tangram/

I got us going so we could head home to finish our furniture building, but he wanted to sit and play games, so we sat by the guardhouse. We were playing a preschool game where he had a science lab under the slide. He took the preschool class into an eyeball. He then needed to use the bathroom and we went to the one in the library. In the bathroom he found out we were walking home and he instantly got really upset and started yelling.

As we slowly walked through the school, him not much calmer, we saw both Rebecca and Sherry and talked to them. He wasn’t willing to walk home yet and was convinced that Carly would walk home and get the car and come and get him. We went to her classroom and talked to her, then sat on the beanbags and read Hilo 3 to chapter 8.

We all walked home, and got here at 5. On the couch he directed Carly to sit to one side of him and me the other: “I like sitting in the middle next to both of you.” He had some dinner, then Carly was trying to get him to sit with her to read his library book. Suddenly, he said, “I almost forgot! The chair!” I asked, “You want to do that now?” “Totally!”

We went up and he helped me finish the chair. As I ironed the covers and put them on the cushions he played a game where he was a cat that ended up as a classroom pet. He slept on the cushions. When the chair and shelves were all set up, temporarily in the Zinnie room, he wanted to use his iPad in the chair. He used the Maps apps and was finding interesting places. He explained that “There’s a reason I’m marking places…” It was so that we could go to these places in the future. He found amusement parks, including one up near Vancouver, B.C. that I said might actually be possible sometime.

I got his bath ready and Carly gave him a bath. She was asking him questions about playing with kids and he gave thumbs sideways to playing with Bar or Omri. Said he would play with Eve or Hector if he played with anyone at school. He told us “I don’t really want friends…I have a friend in my a tummy…a robot…Uncle Trout…I have barbecuing to do!” Those are references to Hilo and the robot uncle he builds.

I read Preschool to the Rescue, then he ate apples and Cheerios and played with the sounds you can make with the Eric Carle book we have of animal stories. We were making rhythms. Carly came back to go to sleep with him. I told him I would sleep on the bed if there was room. “But I took around a lot! I could be there, or there, or in the middle…” I left them at 8:35. But he wasn’t falling asleep, so I went up after 9 and sang to him for awhile, then lay with him until Carly came back and I left gain at 9:35. I got a text message a few minutes later saying the word of the day was ‘unconditional’, likely referring to love, which was good as I’d totally forgotten about a word of the day. think he was asleep a bit after that.

Having the preschool class visit an eyeball:

Rolling to Mama’s classroom time lapse:

Answering questions with the classroom signs:

Putting together the chair:

Morning Cousin It hair

Library time across from me

Book to check out

Pirate he made Friday

Forest art

Explaining the game

Playing his iPad in the new chair

Playing in the sink

I started trying to wake him up at 7:15. He finally woke up at 7:30. A big night of eleven hours of sleep. The first thing he said to me was “What’s after rest time?” I was able to tell him it was yoga, which he hasn’t had in weeks and weeks. He watched one Pink Panther and we were on our way. We got to his classroom right at 8:10, but they were already in a meeting, planning Bibo’s birthday party. So apparently 8:05 is the new start time? Haven’t gotten a memo on that. He was a little hesitant, not knowing the schedule, but Andrea got up for something and came and got him and he went back to the circle with her.

I walked home and was there for awhile, then went to busy, busy Ikea. Got the chair that we had decided on, a set of bookshelves, a new 13 inch pan, and some smaller things, like a pack of paper for August. It was quite busy and I had to park almost at the end of the lot. Along line to checkout, so I had time to study Hebrew.

At home I hauled all the boxes into the living room, then did a first read through of the Sabeel book, which came back from the printer. Looks really good, but quite a few errors from the printer to correct. Also, they used the 10 minute sketch I had made just to illustrate an idea for the book cover as the actual book cover. If Omar had told me he liked the idea I would have spent some actual time on it.

Walked back to school and got him just before 3. He was playing with a big set of magnet blocks and showed me how they work. And he told me he has a camera in his stomach that does stop motion and can take billions of photos. He then took me into the atelier and wanted me to build something with him using the shape blocks, which were on the table. We built a symmetrical shape together, then he went and got a mirror so he could make it double again. He showed me a paper packet thing in the atelier and told me it was for the reading class, but couldn’t tell me more. He said they hadn’t had reading class yet, and they hadn’t talked about it. They should be starting those up soon though.

We went out on the bench and he ate. I had brought superglue and I superglued his timer, which had broken on Friday. He says he doesn’t need it for rest time now, so we’ll probably take it home tomorrow when it is dry. He told me knock knock jokes he had made up, like “Knock knock. Who’s there. Bird. Bird who? Peck, peck, peck, peck!” He had me break apart one of the round corn crackers into 12 pieces and we did math with that. And he told me about yoga. He said they did balloon breathing, sun salutation, and what sounded like sunama. He sang a sun salutation song he had learned in class.

We headed home before 4 after I told him we had Ikea furniture to put together. At home he used the broken strap around the big chair box to drag it over to the rug, where we were placing all the boxes. I took the box with the shelves upstairs, but were opening the chair part downstairs. I could only find the big scissors, and let him use them to cut the other strap around the big box. I was then putting the scissors away and just going to pull off the tape when he came over to me and sort of whispered “Hey dada, I liked that one time you let me use the really big scissors.” So with my help and supervision I let him cut all the tape on the big box to get it open.

But then he wanted to have fun just cutting the plastic. When I said no to that he got frustrated and said I wasn’t letting him come up with ideas. I argued that we had a lot to do and that would slow us down. he switched his argument and now said he wanted to come up with ideas to help out. And he did. He used the screwdriver set to figure out he could poke holes in the plastic on the door units for the bookshelves to get them open. He managed to fully open both boxes and was very excited that he figured it out on his own.

We then headed upstairs and he helped put together the shelves unit. Like our other units, except white this time, with two wood-pattered doors to put on two of the square shelves. He told me he was Izzy, my helper (after Izzy in the Hilo books). He also talked at one point about how his teachers wouldn’t believe that he helped put furniture together.

We finished the shelves and one of the doors, although there wasn’t much he could do to help with the doors. So we switched to the chair, putting the metal pieces on the bottom. He was playing with the metal pieces, pretending they were shooting things out of them, etc. but then he was hitting things with them and I was asking him to stop (in particular Carly’s Q, 14, etc. paintings). Carly came in and when he kept hitting things with it she took it away. He had a meltdown after this.

After a couple minutes he was calling for me to come into the bedroom. I think he was concerned I was going to finish it all on my own, so I told him we could pause and finish tomorrow. That seemed to help and he calmed down and apologized for screaming in her ear.

He and I went downstairs and Carly took a shower. He watched The Magic School Bus episode about different kinds of animal eyes. I got soup ready for him. It was a little after 7 when he was done with the episode and then ate his soup. Carly asked him about his day and if he had fun. He answered,”Affirmative” (which is from a robot in a Julius Jr. episode) but wouldn’t tell her much more. A minute later Carly asked him, “Did you grow today?” He replied, “Uh-huh…Why do you ask me that so much?”

It was time for his bath but he wanted me to play the preschool game with him. I told him he could it with Carly while he took his bath and pointed out he hadn’t played much with her today. So he asked Carly to play with him tomorrow when it wasn’t bath time. Earlier she said he had told Carly to say “I love you” less: “You can say it sometimes, but not quite so much.”

Still on the couch, he told us “I’m the worst person in my class.” And he again related the story of knocking over an iPad. He had also told Carly about this before falling asleep on Friday. We talked to him about it and a couple minutes later it seemed he had changed his mind: “I’m the teacher’s favorite student in the class.”

Carly took him up to his bath and brushed his teeth. They came downstairs for a minute to get chocolate milk, then I took him up to bed after he said goodnight to Carly. He talked about “The subatomic sea. That’s the saltiest sea…” In Skybrary we read a book called Perimeter, Area, and Volume: A Monster Book of Dimensions and Izzy Impala’s Imaginary Illnesses. I turned on the lamp and we played a few minutes of the preschool game. He used the bathroom and I had lights off at 8:50. I think 8:30 is the goal going forward. He started talking about being the worst student again and wanted me to call his teachers right then to ask them if he was the worst student. When I talked to Carly afterwards it turned out he had said the same to her on Friday. So I will try to talk to one of his teachers tomorrow—he’s definitely worry about this. He then asked me “Can you sing me something?” I sang Thin Blue Flame, Cohen’s Hallelujah, and a couple other things and he was asleep by 9:20.

Using the mirror to make symmetry:

Sun salutation song:

Figuring out how to open the Ikea packages all on his own:

More sun salutation song:

Time lapse of me working on the shelves:

Waking up

Working on our shape

Pulling

Using the big scissors

Trying out the chair

Helping